What once ensured that I sat at a table next to the teacher is now posted, Monday through Friday.

I've contributed to perhaps the best humor compilation I've ever read. Available now on Amazon!

My second chapbook, "The Second Book of Pearl: The Cats" is now available as either a paper chapbook or as a downloadable item. See below for the Pay Pal link or click on its cover just to the right of the newest blog post to download to your Kindle, iPad, or Nook. Just $3.99 for inspired tales of gin, gambling addiction and inter-feline betrayal.

My first chapbook, I Was Raised to be A Lert is in its third printing and is available both via the PayPal link below and on smashwords! Order one? Download one? It's all for you, baby!

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

The Cat Has a System

By 4:45 Sunday, the cat is seated on the couch, her
attention fixed on the TV.

In front of her, the NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball
Championship bracket.To the immediate
right, a can of Royal Crown Cola with a straw in it; to the immediate left, one
of her many souvenir ashtrays, this one in the shape of a human foot, the words
“We got a kick out of New Mexico!” embossed on the bottom.In the ashtray is one unlit Virginia Slims.

Apparently the “no smoking” rule in the house doesn’t
count if you only have one.

Arranged along the top of the bracket is a neatly
arranged row of six exquisitely sharpened Number 2 pencils.

Dolly Gee Squeakers, formerly of the Humane Society
Squeakers, is ready for March Madness.

Dolly takes a sip from her cola.“It’th like thith…” she says, but then does
not go on to say what it’s like.

Poor Dolly.Saddled with a lisp since kittenhood, it is a sign of just how
distracted she is that she is speaking aloud.

“What’s that, Dolly?”

“Hmm?”the cat
looks up, her bright blue eyes ever so slightly crossed.A long-haired, somewhat pyramidal-shaped
Siamese, she picks up the cigarette, pats the general area of her ribs as the
cigarette dangles from her lips.

Unable to find her lighter, she gives up, puts the
cigarette back into the ceramic foot.

I clear my throat.She looks up, surprised.

She had forgotten I was there.

“You said ‘it’s like this’ but then you didn’t say what
it’s like.”

Dolly smiles shyly, glances at the clock.

4:58.

“I’ve got it figured out,” she says.

“Your picks?”

She nods, picks her words carefully so as to avoid
“s’s”.The cat is known to studiously
steer clear of sibilant sounds, all sensitive-like.

She nods again.

She looks right, left, then beckons me closer with one
curved claw. I lean forward.